The Second Meeting of the APCJJ Subcommittee for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States will take place from the 15th to the 17th of June 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. The APCJJ Subcommittee for ASEAN is a section of the International Juvenile Justice Observatory’s Asia-Pacific Council for Juvenile Justice (APCJJ) that gathers representatives from different sectors, within ASEAN Member States, whose work is related to juvenile justice and children’s rights. This meeting is organized in cooperation with the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection of the Thai Ministry of Justice (DJOP) and the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ).

The International Juvenile Justice Observatory participated as an operational partner to the EUROsociAL programme in an event which examined the results of said programme in Colombia. In the event, held in Bogotá last March, the key areas of EUROsociAL’s impact were assessed, such as its contribution to inter-institutional linking and coordination. Moreover, an analysis of the future landscape was made, as well as of the existing challenges in the South-South Cooperation (Cooperación Sur-Sur) regarding Colombia. The EUROsociAL programme is financed by the European Union and promotes social cohesion in Latin America, through technical cooperation in the region.

The Final Conference of the European project Children’s Rights Behind Bars was held on the 15th of February 2016 at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Belgium. The main focal point of the event was the presentation of the ‘Practical Guide to Monitoring Places where Children Are Deprived of Liberty’, which was released earlier this year. The symposium was the culmination of this project, lead by the Belgian branch of Defence for Children (DCI-Belgium) and funded by the Criminal Justice Programme of the European Union.

The International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO) is proud to present the ‘Addressing Juvenile Justice Priorities in the Asia-Pacific Region’ report. The aim of this report is to identify and analyse the priority issues for juvenile justice systems in the Asia-Pacific region. Accordingly, the report deals with the issues of violence against children in the juvenile justice system, restorative justice, cross-border issues and diversionary and alternative measures. It was produced by the IJJO’s Asia-Pacific Council for Juvenile Justice, with the support of the Department for Juvenile Observation and Protection of the Ministry of Justice of Thailand.

In the last term of 2015, the IJJO collaborated with the National Penitentiary Institute of Peru (INPE) to develop a workshop to formulate a new legal regulation to improve labour and hiring relations for people who are deprived of liberty. This work is part of a series of actions that the Conference of Ibero-American Ministers and the IJJO have carried out to support the social reintegration and employability of this group, in the framework of the EUROsociAL II programme, which is financed by the European Union.

The programme EUROsociAL II includes the action plan 'Assisting the process of modernization of Public Policies aimed at adolescents in conflict with the law'. As part of this action plan, the IJJO has had the opportunity to advise the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights on two important projects that will lead to significant improvements in Peruvian juvenile justice. These two technical assistance actions, which took place in September and November, 2015, were focused around supporting the Bill for an Autonomous Law for the Criminal Proceedings for Adolescents (Proyecto de Ley Autónoma para el Proceso Penal Adolescente), and the Programme for social and labour market reintegration of adolescents in conflict with the law. These technical assistance actions were carried out in the context of the IJJO’s collaboration agreement with the Ministry, which goes back to 2012.

From the 25th to the 27th of January, representatives of juvenile justice organisations across Europe gathered in Brussels for a training event organised by the International Juvenile Justice Observatory as part of the ‘Improving Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe’ project. The aim of the event, which was held in the Parliament of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, was to train trainers, who will then deliver national training sessions in their own countries to professionals involved in the juvenile justice process.